Verdict with Ted Cruz - IRS Agents Target the Middle Class, Radical Bias at NPR Exposed & Schumer's Plan to Nuke the Constitution Week In Review

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:00:02.580 Guaranteed human.

00:00:04.260 Welcome.

00:00:04.940 It is Verdict with Ted Cruz.

00:00:06.640 Weekend Review.

00:00:07.620 Ben Ferguson with you.

00:00:09.020 And these are the big stories that you may have missed that we talked about this past

00:00:12.380 week.

00:00:12.960 First up, the IRS is targeting now millions of middle-class Americans, something they

00:00:19.080 promised that they weren't going to do when it came to the Biden administration.

00:00:23.320 We'll expose why you may be a target coming up in a moment.

00:00:26.860 Also, a whistleblower inside of NPR comes forward after decades of working there saying

00:00:32.820 now they're just out to destroy people like Donald Trump.

00:00:36.540 They're no longer just kind of a, you know, a little bit more liberal mentality in the

00:00:40.940 office.

00:00:41.420 It is about destroying conservatives.

00:00:43.740 I want you to hear what he has to say.

00:00:45.380 It's truly shocking.

00:00:46.980 And finally, Chuck Schumer is confident that the Mayorkas impeachment will be resolved in

00:00:53.000 a single day.

00:00:54.140 Will Republicans actually fight back?

00:00:55.920 We'll explain that battle heating up.

00:00:58.360 It is the Weekend Review, and it starts right now.

00:01:01.600 Senator, let's talk about this shocking new data that's come out.

00:01:05.780 A warning that came from you on this show, and I want to play that in a moment, but I

00:01:11.080 want to get to the headline here.

00:01:12.920 There are two things right now that are worrying many Americans.

00:01:15.960 Number one, it's Bidenomics.

00:01:17.860 It is a disaster right now.

00:01:19.560 We are seeing even top Biden economic advisor bragged about gas prices, which are up 50%

00:01:27.520 since Biden took office, saying, quote, we are pleased that gas prices have come down.

00:01:32.860 Now, the media is allowing them to lie, and the American people are not going to fall for

00:01:37.660 this, I don't believe.

00:01:38.340 But take a listen to this.

00:01:39.320 This is coming from the White House, from the Biden team, trying to convince Americans

00:01:43.720 that, hey, you're paying less of the pump right now than ever.

00:01:47.000 You should be excited.

00:01:47.840 So important for American families and a big focus of President Biden.

00:01:54.100 We are pleased that gas prices have come down by $1.40 relative to that peak that was caused

00:02:02.040 by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

00:02:04.420 But as you say, we are watching carefully to make sure that those gas prices at the pump

00:02:11.080 don't go up.

00:02:12.740 Now, Senator, that's just a lie.

00:02:15.280 Gas prices are not down.

00:02:17.620 Anyone that goes to the pump knows this.

00:02:19.560 We also know now that grocery prices are nearing 40% higher than they were in 2019.

00:02:25.520 And to add insult to injury, we're now being told, on top of all of that that's hurting

00:02:31.000 the middle class, there's now going to be, more than ever, IRS agents that are targeting

00:02:36.480 specifically middle class Americans with more audits than ever before.

00:02:42.800 Well, that's exactly right.

00:02:44.440 First of all, in terms of prices, you know, they're crowing about that they say gasoline

00:02:49.460 prices are lower than the worst they were under Biden, but they're still up 51% from where

00:02:55.940 they were under Trump.

00:02:57.180 By the way, overall prices are up 18.6%.

00:03:00.420 Real average weekly earnings are down 4.2%.

00:03:04.760 Real average weekly earnings were up 8.2% under Trump.

00:03:09.540 And in the month of March, zero new manufacturing jobs were added.

00:03:13.480 And so, look, the economy is hurting mightily.

00:03:16.960 And then you put on top of that, the IRS is doing actually what we predicted on this podcast,

00:03:24.200 is targeting the middle class.

00:03:25.980 The Wall Street Journal wrote just a few days ago, quote, the Internal Revenue Service got

00:03:32.760 an audit of its own in time for tax day and two irregularities jump out.

00:03:36.260 President Biden's plan to hire a new army of tax collectors is falling flat, and the agents

00:03:42.280 already at work are targeting the middle class.

00:03:46.460 Those are the two findings of the IRS's watchdog, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.

00:03:52.420 The most recent data suggests the IRS is still focused on the middle class.

00:03:57.700 As of last summer, 63% of new audits targeted taxpayers with incomes of less than $200,000.

00:04:10.080 Only a small overall share reached the very highest earners, while 80% of the audits covered

00:04:17.620 filers earning less than $1 million.

00:04:20.300 And as the Wall Street Journal urges you, don't forget to save those charitable giving receipts.

00:04:25.420 This is exactly opposite what Joe Biden promised the American people, but it's what we knew

00:04:33.460 was going to happen.

00:04:34.840 They were going to use the new agents to go after the middle class. 0.96

00:04:38.300 That's exactly what they're doing.

00:04:39.840 Let me just remind people of what you said on the show, and this was quite some time ago.

00:04:44.180 Here is the warning when we said it here early on that they're going to come after average

00:04:49.060 Americans, not just the elites, as they were claiming.

00:04:51.760 For Good Friday and Easter, the IRS released the news.

00:04:54.640 They did it as a news dump going into the holiday because they didn't want people to pay attention

00:04:59.320 to it, that they are right now hiring the first 30,000 of those employees.

00:05:06.220 10,000 of them are being hired in the current fiscal year, and in fiscal year 2024, they're

00:05:12.860 planning to double that with 27,000 new hires.

00:05:17.020 Now, what does that mean?

00:05:19.080 Well, let's go through a lot of different elements.

00:05:22.840 The long and short of it is, it means a whole bunch more IRS employees there to harass you,

00:05:28.620 to harass citizens, to harass small businesses, to harass and target the political enemies

00:05:33.620 of the Biden White House.

00:05:36.120 Senator, you look at that warning and you look at what you mentioned right beforehand about

00:05:41.780 prices that have skyrocketed, the costs of goods and services are up, manufacturing jobs

00:05:47.020 that are down, and there has to be a moment, I would argue, of reckoning with the average

00:05:53.260 American voter where they look at this administration and they sit there and they stare at you in the

00:05:58.140 face.

00:05:58.440 They say, no, no, gas prices are good.

00:06:00.280 And the American people have to know, no, that's not true.

00:06:02.520 When they say, oh, no, no, the price of the grocery store, they're not that bad.

00:06:06.280 They've got to have a moment where they say, no, no, no, we don't believe you anymore.

00:06:11.200 You travel a lot.

00:06:12.560 You talk to a lot of people around the state of Texas.

00:06:15.100 I don't believe that the American people are going to be bamboozled by this much longer.

00:06:19.980 Yeah, look, I think the American people know that Bidenomics is a mess.

00:06:23.920 And in fact, you see the Biden White House backing away from using that term, Bidenomics, because

00:06:29.680 they thought it was a good thing and they discovered, oh, wait, people think it's a

00:06:33.580 terrible thing.

00:06:35.000 That's, listen, anyone who's paying the bills, anyone who goes to the grocery store, anyone

00:06:40.920 who fills up their tank at the pump, anyone who deals with health care costs, electricity

00:06:46.600 costs, rent, mortgages.

00:06:49.320 I'll tell you, young people, I think one of the most potent things is young people buying 1.00

00:06:55.100 their first home.

00:06:55.880 A young married couple, they're suddenly discovering they can get about half as much

00:07:00.240 house as they thought they could get.

00:07:02.480 Because a few years ago, when you had mortgage rates at two and a half percent, you could get

00:07:07.800 actually a pretty big, pretty, you know, a nice three bedroom house, a backyard, a swing.

00:07:12.920 And suddenly young people are discovering, holy cow, what I thought I could afford is 0.98

00:07:18.300 now out of reach.

00:07:19.020 Now, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation, you can go back and listen to

00:07:23.700 the full podcast from earlier this week.

00:07:26.880 Canadian women are looking for more, more out of themselves, their businesses, their 1.00

00:07:30.920 elected leaders, and the world around them.

00:07:32.980 And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast.

00:07:36.780 I'm Jennifer Stewart.

00:07:37.880 And I'm Catherine Clark.

00:07:39.100 And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women, entrepreneurs, artists,

00:07:44.240 athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey.

00:07:48.300 So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us.

00:07:51.840 Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

00:07:57.660 Now on to story number two.

00:08:00.280 Senator, there was another story that broke.

00:08:02.300 And this is one that is for a guy that has spent my entire career in media.

00:08:09.660 NPR annoys me beyond a level of frustration that most people can imagine, because I don't

00:08:15.720 understand why my tax dollars are subsidizing a hardcore leftist organization and why I'm

00:08:22.740 paying their salaries at NPR.

00:08:24.800 That's the reality.

00:08:26.460 But now we've got a guy that was there for 25 years who has blown the whistle on NPR,

00:08:31.600 saying that basically when Donald Trump was elected, it completely broke NPR.

00:08:35.940 And they are there every day to take down conservatives, take down Trump, take down anybody like him.

00:08:42.280 And our tax dollars are going to pay for NPR.

00:08:45.800 No, that's exactly right.

00:08:47.280 And this story is a big deal because this is, as you noted, a whistleblower who came clean

00:08:55.000 and really wanted to describe what was happening in a major media institution, one of the most

00:08:59.040 important media institutions in the country.

00:09:00.700 And so the individual in question is a guy named Uri Berliner, who was a 25-year veteran

00:09:08.160 of NPR.

00:09:09.220 He was a senior business editor at NPR.

00:09:12.300 And he wrote a column on the Free Press that came out April 9th.

00:09:17.500 And I actually want to read from a good chunk of it because I think it's important what he

00:09:22.500 said.

00:09:23.100 And it is very much whistleblowing.

00:09:25.720 So here's how he starts.

00:09:27.040 Quote, you know the stereotype of the NPR listener.

00:09:30.700 An EV driving, wordle playing, tote bag carrying coastal elite.

00:09:37.000 It doesn't precisely describe me, but it's not far off.

00:09:41.600 I'm Sarah Lawrence educated, was raised by a lesbian peace activist mother.

00:09:47.300 I drive a Subaru.

00:09:48.960 And Spotify says my listening habits are most similar to people in Berkeley.

00:09:53.520 I fit the NPR mold.

00:09:55.340 I'll cop to that.

00:09:56.680 So when I got a job there 25 years ago, I never looked back.

00:09:59.880 As a senior editor on the business desk where news is always breaking, we've covered upheavals

00:10:04.820 in the workplace, supermarket prices, social media, and AI.

00:10:08.720 It's true that NPR always had a liberal bent.

00:10:11.840 But during most of my tenure here, an open-minded, curious culture prevailed.

00:10:17.920 We were nerdy, but not knee-jerk, activist, or scolding.

00:10:22.220 In recent years, however, that has changed.

00:10:25.860 Today, those who listen to NPR or read its coverage online find something different.

00:10:30.260 The distilled worldview of a very small segment of the U.S. population.

00:10:35.380 If you are conservative, you will read this and say,

00:10:39.280 Duh, it's always been this way.

00:10:42.000 But it hasn't.

00:10:42.960 For decades, since its founding in 1970, a wide swath of America tuned into NPR for reliable

00:10:50.760 journalism and gorgeous audio pieces with birds singing in the Amazon.

00:10:55.900 Millions came to us for conversations that exposed us to voices around the country and

00:11:00.080 a world radically different from our own, engaging precisely because they were unguarded and 0.99

00:11:05.400 unpredictable.

00:11:05.920 No image generated more pride within NPR than the farmer listening to Morning Edition from

00:11:12.840 his or her tractor at sunrise.

00:11:15.080 Back in 2011, although NPR's audience tilted a bit to the left, it still bore a resemblance

00:11:21.660 to America at large.

00:11:23.680 26% of listeners described themselves as conservative, 23% as middle-of-the-road, and 37% as liberal.

00:11:33.000 By 2023, the picture was completely different.

00:11:36.680 Only 11% described themselves as very or even somewhat conservative.

00:11:42.260 21% as middle-of-the-road, and 67% of listeners said they were very or somewhat liberal.

00:11:48.960 We weren't just losing conservatives.

00:11:50.900 We were also losing moderates and traditional liberals.

00:11:54.760 An open-minded spirit no longer exists within NPR, and now, predictably, we don't have an audience

00:12:01.200 that reflects America.

00:12:02.980 That wouldn't be a problem for an openly polemical news outlet serving a niche audience, but for

00:12:09.500 NPR, which purports to consider all things, it's devastating both for its journalism and

00:12:16.720 its business model.

00:12:17.580 You listen to that, and it's a guy that's almost like he's coming clean, realizing just how damaging

00:12:24.600 what NPR is doing to the country, and describing it.

00:12:30.340 Yeah, he's in pain.

00:12:31.700 He also did an interview.

00:12:33.140 He sat down talking about this, and I want you to hear what he had to say on Honestly with

00:12:38.520 Barry Rice.

00:12:39.620 Take a listen to this.

00:12:40.640 Everyone knew that NPR had a liberal bent.

00:12:43.900 It was like saying these days, like, Fox has a conservative bent.

00:12:46.880 That was obvious to anyone.

00:12:48.440 But you argue that it's really gone from having a liberal bent or a liberal shading to really

00:12:53.920 a bias.

00:12:54.700 Here's one thing you write in your essay.

00:12:56.820 You write, for the majority of your time at NPR, despite the liberal bend, an open-minded,

00:13:02.200 curious culture prevailed.

00:13:03.600 We were nerdy, but not knee-jerk activists or scolding.

00:13:09.000 Ori, when did that start to change?

00:13:10.800 When did the thing that everyone sort of recognized as sort of a liberal bias start to shift into

00:13:16.980 something harder than that, into what you call a knee-jerk activist and even scolding quality?

00:13:24.340 Well, I think it was cumulative.

00:13:26.840 I don't think it was one event.

00:13:28.140 I mean, I think part of it was Trump's election.

00:13:31.120 You know, I think like every newsroom, every legacy media newsroom, we were shocked, disturbed,

00:13:36.520 distraught, really troubled.

00:13:38.820 We assumed Hillary Clinton was going to win, and she didn't. 1.00

00:13:44.080 And it was really an unsettling experience.

00:13:48.180 But I also think, to me, it revealed that we didn't really understand a lot of what was

00:13:52.680 going on in America, that we were out of touch.

00:13:55.000 Um, but, um, I think also we, we kind of locked down after a while.

00:14:01.400 I think after a while we started covering Trump, um, in a way that, that, like a lot of legacy

00:14:09.140 news, news organizations, that we were trying to damage his presidency to even find anything

00:14:13.920 we could to harm him.

00:14:15.840 And I think what we latched on to was Russia collusion, like a lot of news organizations,

00:14:20.320 which was, as I write, sort of catnip, although it was just rumors and a lot of it based on

00:14:26.740 pretty shoddy documents or evidence.

00:14:32.240 There wasn't, it wasn't really solid.

00:14:34.240 Um, but I think it was, it was compelling.

00:14:36.300 Um, and for us, you know, I think a lot of newspapers, you know, use documents or anonymous

00:14:43.360 sources.

00:14:43.980 We really latched on to Adam Schiff.

00:14:45.680 He was like our muse to the Trump collusion story.

00:14:48.940 We had him on constantly, a lot.

00:14:50.920 I think I counted 25 times, you know, and in most of those conversations, he sort of alluded

00:14:55.180 to evidence he may have had, or sort of teased out, yeah, Russia, you know, he was colluding

00:15:00.140 or the campaign was colluding with Russia.

00:15:01.900 And then the Mueller report came out and no collusion.

00:15:06.940 And, you know, I think we sort of went to sort of, the story kind of disappeared.

00:15:11.520 But to me, that was like a time for like, what went wrong?

00:15:14.240 Why did we miss this?

00:15:15.520 Like, um, you know, despite our feelings about Trump, this is a story we should have sort

00:15:20.080 of treated differently.

00:15:21.940 You hear him say that they, he said they were trying to harm Trump.

00:15:26.700 Now that is shocking for him to say this because in translation center, that means.

00:15:31.520 And stop, stop and repeat that for a second.

00:15:33.920 Stop, stop and repeat that for a second.

00:15:36.220 This is a senior editor at NPR.

00:15:38.760 Mind you, they're funded by U.S. taxpayer dollars.

00:15:43.120 And he is admitting the entire institution, in his words, was trying to harm Trump.

00:15:50.580 I mean, that is a damning admission.

00:15:53.140 And at some level, as he noted in what I read a minute ago, it was obvious to any conservative,

00:15:58.840 but it says something for, for a senior editor to go and, and, and blow the whistle like this.

00:16:05.240 This NPR reminds me of Twitter before Elon Musk bought it in many ways, where it's bloated.

00:16:11.720 It's, it's out of control.

00:16:13.840 It's activism.

00:16:14.920 It's not run like a business because it's subsidized by government taxpayers.

00:16:19.880 I'm fine with NPR existing center.

00:16:22.260 They should figure out how to do it the same way that everybody else does in media, which

00:16:25.900 is to, you know, make money instead of us giving them our tax dollars to then, as he

00:16:32.600 described it, try to hurt Trump every time they could.

00:16:35.980 And it won't just be Trump in the future.

00:16:37.880 It will be any other conservative based on what he's saying.

00:16:41.300 It's not like they just went in against Trump and that was it.

00:16:44.140 They're going in against every conservative on every story out there.

00:16:48.280 Yeah.

00:16:48.960 Let me focus on two other segments of, of, of what Uri Berliner wrote, uh, quote, concerned

00:16:56.140 by the lack of viewpoint diversity.

00:16:58.660 I looked at voter registration for our newsroom in DC where NPR is headquartered and many of

00:17:06.240 us live.

00:17:06.640 I found 87 registered Democrats working in editorial positions and zero Republicans, none.

00:17:19.160 Now that's not vague or ambiguous.

00:17:22.760 That's not equivocal.

00:17:24.420 That is explicit.

00:17:25.760 Let me read this other segment quote in October, 2020, the New York post published the explosive

00:17:33.040 report about the laptop Hunter Biden abandoned at a Delaware computer shop containing emails

00:17:38.680 about assorted business deals with the election only weeks away.

00:17:43.700 NPR turned a blind eye.

00:17:47.140 Here's how NPR's managing editor for news at the time explained the thinking quote, we don't

00:17:52.760 want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories.

00:17:55.660 And we don't want to waste our listeners and readers time on stories that are just pure

00:18:01.000 distractions, but it wasn't a pure distraction or a product of Russian disinformation as dozens

00:18:09.180 of former and current intelligence officials suggested the laptop did belong to Hunter Biden.

00:18:16.880 Its contents revealed his connection to the corrupt world of multimillion dollar influence

00:18:23.420 peddling and its possible implications for his father.

00:18:27.900 The laptop was newsworthy, but the timeless journalistic instinct of following a hot story

00:18:35.640 lead was being squelched.

00:18:38.900 During a meeting with colleagues, I listened as one of NPR's best and most fair minded journalists

00:18:45.320 said it was good.

00:18:46.820 We weren't following the laptop story because it could help Trump when the essential facts

00:18:55.580 of the post post reportings were confirmed and the emails verified independently about a

00:19:03.940 year and a half later.

00:19:05.300 We could have fessed up to our misjudgment, but like Russia collusion, we didn't make the hard

00:19:12.800 choice of transparency.

00:19:16.540 Why fix it if it's your ideology, right?

00:19:19.060 If this is what the ideology is and it's being funded by taxpayers, why stop?

00:19:25.000 Which brings me to my final question on this.

00:19:27.880 We've I've heard about this and we've talked about this for I hate to say it 20 years.

00:19:32.620 How on earth are they getting this type of government funding, especially now if we know this from

00:19:37.940 someone that worked there for 25 years, is there any way to say the NPR, that's fine, if this is what

00:19:42.820 your mission is, go and do it, but you're not going to do it subsidized by taxpayers?

00:19:48.800 Listen, I would eliminate the funding for NPR tomorrow.

00:19:52.800 That's the right thing to do.

00:19:54.160 We shouldn't be in the business of funding NPR.

00:19:57.000 The problem is every Democrat wants to spend your taxpayer dollars funding NPR, because why

00:20:02.560 wouldn't you if you're a leftist, why wouldn't you be willing to to to use taxpayer dollars to fund

00:20:08.660 a propaganda outlet for your view?

00:20:10.640 And I got to tell you, in the budget battles, too many Republicans are scared of taking on NPR.

00:20:16.280 And so between the two, it keeps going.

00:20:19.680 Look, I actually think it speaks volume that where Uri Berliner wrote this was the free press.

00:20:27.100 The free press was started by Barry Weiss.

00:20:29.360 Barry Weiss resigned from the editorial board of The New York Times and wrote a letter.

00:20:35.580 If you haven't read the letter, we may do a podcast where we just read the letter because

00:20:39.120 it's something I actually think should be taught in every journalism class in America.

00:20:44.200 It is a letter where and listen, Barry, by her own description, is left of center.

00:20:48.380 She's a liberal Democrat who voted for Obama twice.

00:20:51.420 But she was horrified.

00:20:53.140 And actually, Barry's resignation letter reads very much like Uri Berliner's article.

00:20:59.740 They're both people left of center who actually believe in some modicum of free speech, some

00:21:04.860 modicum of fairness.

00:21:05.920 And they look at the corruption of institutions they respected.

00:21:10.140 I look at Uri Berliner and I'm reminded of John F. Kennedy's famous speech of the Berlin Wall,

00:21:16.080 Ich bin ein Berliner, which he thought meant that he was a Berliner, a resident of Berlin.

00:21:24.200 But actually, it was poorly translated German.

00:21:27.460 And what the better translation was is I am a jelly donut, which was not JFK's finest moment.

00:21:34.060 But nonetheless, I feel the same sentiments.

00:21:37.400 Uri Berliner and I may disagree on a lot of things, but I'm proud to stand with Uri Berliner

00:21:41.740 for daring to speak the truth because free speech matters, and I actually think it matters.

00:21:47.920 I met recently with the CEO of a major journalistic enterprise.

00:21:53.780 I won't say who it is.

00:21:55.420 And I told him, I said, listen, I actually believe in a free press.

00:22:00.580 I defend you even when you kick the crap out of me, even when you attack me, because I think

00:22:05.120 it's important to democracy and free speech to have a real and vibrant press. 0.98

00:22:09.120 But when you guys are just corrupt ideologues, when you're just propagandists, it hurts the

00:22:16.580 entire country.

00:22:17.620 And so I give a big shout out to Uri Berliner, like Barry Weiss, on whose platform he wrote

00:22:23.880 this.

00:22:24.800 There are a handful of liberals, and I actually want to call out, listen, I don't know that

00:22:29.520 many fair-minded liberals in the media listen to Verdict, although we're close to a million

00:22:34.740 listeners, so maybe there are.

00:22:35.840 If you're a fair-minded liberal working in the media and you don't like the bias and

00:22:42.040 propaganda, and I'm not saying you're suddenly conservative and a right-winger, that's okay.

00:22:45.680 That's okay.

00:22:46.740 We can have reasonable discussions.

00:22:50.280 But when people speak out, like Uri Berliner and Barry Weiss, it makes a difference, and

00:22:55.940 we need more people to do that.

00:22:57.480 As before, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation on this topic, you can go

00:23:02.020 back and download the podcast from earlier this week to hear the entire thing.

00:23:05.760 Canadian women are looking for more, more out of themselves, their businesses, their 1.00

00:23:10.960 elected leaders, and the world around them.

00:23:13.020 And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast.

00:23:16.740 I'm Jennifer Stewart.

00:23:17.920 And I'm Catherine Clark.

00:23:19.160 And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women.

00:23:22.900 Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of

00:23:27.800 their journey.

00:23:28.640 So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us.

00:23:31.640 Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

00:23:37.580 I want to get back to the big story, number three of the week you may have missed.

00:23:42.280 Senator, let's talk about the confidence of Chuck Schumer in that clip that we played.

00:23:48.280 He seemed pretty confident and said it over again, I think twice, that this is going to

00:23:53.820 be something that we're looking for a resolution quickly, maybe in a day as the reporter yelled

00:23:58.880 back at him.

00:23:59.500 He didn't seem to push back on that at all.

00:24:01.640 So what is their game plan to basically make all this go away?

00:24:06.540 And how do we stop it?

00:24:08.060 And that seems to be your core goal here is to make sure that doesn't happen.

00:24:13.340 Schumer wants it incredibly quick, incredibly silent.

00:24:16.260 He doesn't want Senate Democrats on record.

00:24:18.620 He doesn't want any of the facts revealed to the American people.

00:24:21.640 So originally, the plan was that the House had announced they were going to transmit the

00:24:25.880 articles of impeachment Wednesday night.

00:24:28.660 You and I are recording this right now.

00:24:30.340 It is 1151 p.m.

00:24:32.160 Tuesday night.

00:24:33.460 The plan from the House was it was going to come over Wednesday night.

00:24:37.580 Now, the consequence of that means that the Senate would have convened as an impeachment

00:24:44.000 trial Thursday at 1 p.m.

00:24:46.540 So when articles of impeachment come to the Senate, there's actually a separate set of

00:24:50.940 rules for impeachment.

00:24:52.220 They're totally different from the legislative rules.

00:24:54.780 And it's mandatory that the Senate immediately moves into impeachment when articles of impeachment

00:24:59.140 come over.

00:24:59.620 Look, it's only come over 21 times in our whole nation's history.

00:25:03.060 It is an unusual moment.

00:25:04.720 The problem with the Senate starting this Thursday at 1 p.m.

00:25:11.220 is typically senators go home Thursday afternoon, get on a plane and fly back to their states.

00:25:17.460 Schumer wanted to do all of this Thursday afternoon because he knew senators would be

00:25:21.240 anxious to leave to get back to their states.

00:25:23.220 They have events scheduled in their state.

00:25:25.140 They're traveling around their state.

00:25:26.440 And he knew they would want to get out of here.

00:25:27.920 So this morning, Tuesday morning, I started the morning by sitting down in a meeting with

00:25:34.200 Mitch McConnell and with Republican leadership and with Mike Lee and John Kennedy and meeting

00:25:42.540 with leadership about how we can fight what Schumer is doing here. 0.99

00:25:46.960 And a point that I raised in that meeting this morning, I said it is really damn stupid 0.98

00:25:52.380 for us to do this Thursday afternoon. 0.95

00:25:56.020 It facilitates Schumer's goal of making this quick.

00:26:00.060 And what I suggested at the meeting this morning is I said it would make a lot more sense

00:26:04.240 for the House to transmit the articles of impeachment next week, next Monday.

00:26:09.020 If they transmit it Monday, the Senate takes it up Tuesday.

00:26:12.980 Tuesday is a much better time to take it up because it means the Senate, we have the entire

00:26:17.040 week to put this issue before the American people.

00:26:19.880 And we're not doing it at a time when senators, both Democrats and Republicans, are eager to get

00:26:24.680 out of town.

00:26:26.180 The phrase is jet fumes are in the air, like Thursday afternoon is when leadership tries

00:26:30.200 to ram things through quickly because everyone wants to leave.

00:26:33.680 Well, and by the way, side note, what's what's happening also this weekend, which every person

00:26:38.140 in America that loves sports going to be paying attention to as well, that starts on Thursday,

00:26:42.620 the Masters.

00:26:43.660 So for Democrats, it'd be even a better time to do it on Thursday.

00:26:46.320 So a bit of good news.

00:26:49.160 I raised this morning at the meeting, I said, this doesn't make any sense.

00:26:53.100 Everyone who was meeting with us agreed.

00:26:56.260 And so I texted the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson.

00:26:59.040 Mike Lee texted the Speaker of the House.

00:27:01.580 John Kennedy texted the Speaker of the House.

00:27:04.080 And the Speaker, to his credit, he's a great guy, he's a great friend.

00:27:07.580 The Speaker said, OK, great, happy to do it.

00:27:09.980 And so he announced this afternoon that they were going to delay sending the articles of

00:27:14.920 impeachment until early next week.

00:27:16.420 And so we asked him to do that.

00:27:17.900 He did that at our request.

00:27:19.860 And the reason we wanted it to come early next week is so that we could focus early on the

00:27:24.680 week when we could get real attention and focus on it.

00:27:26.780 So that was a good step.

00:27:28.540 Now, I want to pause and have you reflect a little bit on why this motion to table is so

00:27:36.220 consequential.

00:27:36.880 If Schumer succeeds, if every Democrat votes for it, and right now Schumer seems supremely

00:27:44.180 confident that every Democrat will vote for it, what that means, number one, is that every

00:27:49.580 Democrat is now on record supporting Joe Biden's open borders, that they're perfectly fine with

00:27:55.600 what Alejandro Mayorkas has done.

00:27:57.980 But number two, understand that they will have participated in changing the U.S.

00:28:04.860 Senate.

00:28:05.100 And so today I participated in a press conference with a number of Republican senators where we

00:28:10.400 talked about the significance of this moment.

00:28:14.320 And it is in many ways very similar to 2013.

00:28:18.040 In 2013, Harry Reid, the Democrat, was the Senate majority leader.

00:28:22.840 And it is when Harry Reid nuked the filibuster for judicial appointments and for cabinet appointments.

00:28:29.480 And nuking the filibuster, what that meant is that Harry Reid broke the Senate rules in order

00:28:35.080 to change the Senate rules.

00:28:36.200 It used to be the case that you needed 60 votes to move forward on judges to move forward on

00:28:41.040 executive branch nominees.

00:28:43.280 And what Harry Reid did is he used what was called the nuclear option, which is that that he got a ruling

00:28:53.680 from the chair on the floor that it takes 60 votes to proceed to a nomination.

00:28:58.620 And then he moved to overturn the ruling of the chair under the Senate rules.

00:29:03.700 Any ruling of the chair can be overturned and you can overturn the ruling of the chair with with just 51 votes.

00:29:09.280 And so what happened was Harry Reid got the Democrats to overturn the ruling of the chair.

00:29:14.360 And once you do that, you change the precedence and that new ruling is binding.

00:29:20.120 The effect of that is since 2013, nominations have only required 51 votes instead of 60 votes.

00:29:27.980 Well, that night that that that Reid was nuking the filibuster for nominations, the filibuster still

00:29:36.100 exists for legislation, but Reid nuked it for nominations.

00:29:39.440 I talked to Amy Klobuchar on the on the Senate floor and I told Amy that that that day, I said,

00:29:45.360 you are going to regret this decision.

00:29:48.360 All of the Democrats are going to regret this decision.

00:29:51.660 And the consequence of this decision is we are going to see more justices like Antonin Scalia and

00:29:57.560 Clarence Thomas on the courts.

00:29:59.480 And there is an irony that the direct result of Harry Reid nuking the filibuster

00:30:05.740 is Roe versus Wade being overturned.

00:30:08.960 If Harry Reid had not nuked the filibuster, there's no way on earth that the Senate would

00:30:14.120 have confirmed Brett Kavanaugh or probably not Amy Coney Barrett and maybe not even Neil

00:30:18.220 Gorsuch.

00:30:19.200 That if we required 60 votes, Roe versus Wade would still be the law of the land, but for

00:30:26.920 the Senate Democrats nuking the filibuster in 2013.

00:30:29.680 And I told them that a number of us told them that in 2013.

00:30:34.220 Now, what Chuck Schumer is planning to do next week is every bit as big a deal as nuking the

00:30:41.680 filibuster.

00:30:42.200 And in many ways, it's more significant.

00:30:44.160 Why?

00:30:45.060 Because the filibuster is not.

00:30:46.860 What is it?

00:30:47.360 What is the cause and effect then?

00:30:48.740 Right.

00:30:48.920 If you're saying, and you give the last example, which is significant, and I don't think many

00:30:54.900 people understood that or remembered it, but what would it then be the cause and effect

00:30:59.720 of this?

00:31:00.440 And could there be a silver lining in it?

00:31:03.140 Well, look, the reason it is more significant is the filibuster is not written in the Constitution.

00:31:09.320 The filibuster is a matter of Senate procedure and Senate practice and the Senate rules.

00:31:14.380 Impeachment is written into the Constitution.

00:31:17.240 The obligation on the Senate to try impeachment is mandatory.

00:31:20.960 It is in the Constitution.

00:31:22.220 So what the Senate Democrats are planning to do next week is nuke the impeachment clause

00:31:28.040 of the Constitution, destroy the Senate's responsibility, give away the Senate's power.

00:31:33.560 And you want to know the consequences?

00:31:35.760 Listen, we've got an election in November.

00:31:37.960 I think there's a very good chance Donald Trump will be elected president.

00:31:41.300 And it is entirely possible that Trump will be elected president.

00:31:44.500 Republicans will take the Senate.

00:31:47.800 And yet we could lose the House.

00:31:50.280 We could end up in January with Trump in the White House, a Republican Senate and a Democrat

00:31:55.920 House.

00:31:57.260 If that happens, I'm here to predict right now, if the Democrats have the House, they

00:32:01.420 will once again impeach Donald Trump, maybe for the third time, the fourth time, the fifth

00:32:05.240 time.

00:32:05.500 I can't tell you how many times a Democrat House will impeach Donald Trump.

00:32:09.400 It may be the only thing they do for two years.

00:32:12.740 If that happens and it comes to the Senate and we have a Republican Senate, you know what

00:32:18.120 we'll do? 0.99

00:32:18.560 We'll table the damn thing. 0.99

00:32:20.140 And let's be clear, we didn't last time. 0.99

00:32:24.080 So when Donald Trump was impeached the first time, it was exactly that scenario.

00:32:28.560 You had a Democrat House.

00:32:30.440 Pelosi ran the impeachment through.

00:32:32.420 The impeachment came over to the Senate.

00:32:34.300 We had a Republican Senate.

00:32:35.900 Mitch McConnell was the majority leader.

00:32:37.320 We could have tried to do what Chuck Schumer is getting ready to do.

00:32:41.700 We could have just tried to table at the outset, but we didn't because Senate Republicans

00:32:45.320 actually took our constitutional obligations seriously.

00:32:48.300 We followed the Constitution.

00:32:49.900 We conducted the trial and Donald Trump was acquitted.

00:32:52.320 We voted not guilty.

00:32:53.920 That's actually the proper constitutional way.

00:32:56.820 What Chuck Schumer is willing to do to protect Democrat senators from accountability for the

00:33:04.220 disaster at our southern border of their policies, what he now calls a policy dispute, is break

00:33:10.280 the Senate and nuke the impeachment clause of the Constitution.

00:33:15.060 That's a big deal.

00:33:16.520 And it's a deal that will have consequences 10 years, 50 years, 100 years from now.

00:33:22.760 If Schumer does this next week, you will never again see an impeachment trial when the Senate

00:33:29.000 is the same party as the president.

00:33:31.000 That will be taken off the table.

00:33:33.960 So if he does this, will there be any backlash, you think, come November?

00:33:39.480 Or is this such inside baseball that it just says they say, OK, so so what?

00:33:45.220 He changed it.

00:33:46.060 Who really cares?

00:33:46.900 Well, look, the institutional change of the Senate, I don't think that's going to be a

00:33:53.120 big voting issue.

00:33:54.920 I do think the border and the chaos and the suffering and the death that is coming from

00:34:01.560 Joe Biden and the Democrats open border, I think that is going to be probably the single

00:34:05.820 most important issue in November.

00:34:08.040 And so it is critically important.

00:34:10.120 We do everything we can to, to number one, increase the price for Schumer breaking the

00:34:16.180 Senate, destroying the institutions of democracy. 0.74

00:34:19.980 You know, there's an irony.

00:34:21.500 Democrats love to beat their chest and talk about how they want to save democracy.

00:34:26.220 And yet this is an assault on democracy.

00:34:29.800 This is an assault on the Constitution and the institution that is the Senate, just like

00:34:35.340 the Democrats assault on the filibuster back in 2013.

00:34:38.000 The Democrats have systematically been tearing down our institutions.

00:34:43.260 But what I think is going to resonate.

00:34:45.160 So listen, when we move to the impeachment trial, hopefully early next week, a number

00:34:50.800 of us intend to raise points of order.

00:34:52.760 I intend to raise probably multiple points of order challenging what the Democrats are

00:34:58.000 doing.

00:34:59.060 And let me be clear what's supposed to happen.

00:35:01.500 So here's what should happen next week.

00:35:03.460 There are one of two things that can happen.

00:35:04.860 Number one, the Senate, the full Senate could move, could, could move to, could adopt an

00:35:12.880 organizing resolution and move to holding an impeachment trial on the floor of the Senate.

00:35:18.200 Now, when the president is impeached, the chief justice of the United States presides

00:35:23.220 over the impeachment trial.

00:35:24.960 And it occurs on the floor of the Senate.

00:35:28.600 You'll recall that's what happened with, with both of Trump's impeachments.

00:35:31.600 That's what happened with Bill Clinton's impeachment.

00:35:35.700 And so Mike Lee has filed an organizing resolution that I've, I've co-authored that would set up a

00:35:43.800 trial using exactly the same rules that the Democrats put in place that we followed for

00:35:49.000 Donald Trump's impeachment.

00:35:49.960 Actually, the first one, the Republicans put in place.

00:35:53.500 The second one, the Democrats had a majority they put in place for Trump's second impeachment.

00:35:58.420 And by the way, the second impeachment of Trump, the chief justice did not preside because Trump

00:36:02.660 was no longer president.

00:36:03.800 So Pat Leahy, the president pro tem presided because the chief justice only presides when it is the

00:36:08.920 sitting president who's being impeached.

00:36:10.580 That's one way of proceeding.

00:36:14.020 Frankly, if we had a Republican majority, that's the way we would proceed is we would have a trial

00:36:18.440 on the floor of the Senate to put the facts before the American people.

00:36:22.180 There is another way that Schumer and the Democrats could proceed consistent with the

00:36:26.480 Constitution and consistent with the law, which is the Senate could appoint an impeachment

00:36:32.620 committee, a committee with an equal number of members, an equal number of Democrats and

00:36:37.260 Republicans, and the committee would conduct the impeachment trial.

00:36:41.440 Now, the trial would be public.

00:36:43.320 The House managers would present their evidence, and the committee would conduct the trial.

00:36:47.420 That is the way that the Senate has handled, for example, the judicial impeachments that

00:36:51.880 come over.

00:36:52.420 They've appointed a committee.

00:36:54.020 The committee has heard the trial, and then the committee makes a recommendation to the

00:36:58.000 Senate, and the Senate ultimately, every senator has to vote, guilty or not guilty.

00:37:02.220 But the trial itself is not held on the Senate floor.

00:37:05.140 It's held in a committee.

00:37:06.600 Now, I filed an organizing resolution that would set up exactly that process, would set

00:37:12.920 up a committee to conduct the trial.

00:37:15.380 The trial would be public, so we would put the information, we'd put the charges, we'd

00:37:18.900 put the evidence, we'd put the harms, we'd put the people hurt and killed by the Democrats'

00:37:24.760 open borders.

00:37:25.300 We'd put all of those facts before the American people, but it would not be on the floor.

00:37:28.540 It would be in a committee.

00:37:32.920 I'm going to make a motion to do that.

00:37:35.240 The Democrats are going to oppose it.

00:37:36.620 I expect, and I think there are a number of Republicans who are going to raise points

00:37:40.200 of orders, try to make motions to highlight the enormous harms caused by the open borders.

00:37:46.700 And what I'm anticipating is every Democrat voting party line over and over and over again

00:37:52.520 against every motion and every point of order we raise.

00:37:55.020 Why?

00:37:56.240 And it's what Chuck Schumer told us, because this is a policy dispute and the policy of

00:37:59.760 the Democrats is they are for open borders, no matter how many people are killed, no matter

00:38:04.820 how many children are violated, no matter how many women are sexually assaulted, they're

00:38:10.460 for open borders, no matter how many terrorists come into this country and how much death and

00:38:15.840 destruction results.

00:38:17.420 And I think next week we're going to see that vividly before the American people.

00:38:21.480 As always, thank you for listening to Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with

00:38:26.760 you.

00:38:26.900 Don't forget to download my podcast and you can listen to my podcast every other day.

00:38:30.560 You're not listening to Verdict or each day when you listen to Verdict afterwards.

00:38:33.820 I'd love to have you as a listener to, again, the Ben Ferguson podcast, and we will see you

00:38:38.360 back here on Monday morning.

00:38:40.080 This is an iHeart Podcast, guaranteed human.

Verdict with Ted Cruz - April 13, 2024

IRS Agents Target the Middle Class, Radical Bias at NPR Exposed & Schumer's Plan to Nuke the Constitution Week In Review

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